But if that’s all you use Google Now for, that’s a shame, because there’s a lot of cool little features squirreled away in Google Now that you can get a lot of mileage out of. Use them for practical purposes, or just to boost your power-user street cred. Today we’ll be counting down five handy Google Now utilities that’ll change the way you use your phone.

Have A DJ And Personal Music Dictionary

If you don’t have earbuds with a microphone, consider picking some up, it makes this one a lot more useful. Next time you want to hear a song, all you have to do is ask:

These tools are great for when you’re on the go and want to use your phone hands free, and are great for jogging, cycling, and other outdoor sports.

Have A Built-in Calculator And Converter

Next time you’re in a restaurant, and you want to figure out percentages, just ask!

“Ok Google, what’s the tip for $150?”

Vacationing in a foreign country, and you want to know how much something costs in US dollars?

“Ok Google, what’s ten dollars in Japanese Yen?”

Or maybe you’re just trying to cook a potion from the ancient, leather-bound, possibly-haunted book you found in the attic, and aren’t sure what the units mean. Google Now to the rescue!

“Ok Google, how many teaspoons in a hogshead?”

Automate Your Stalking Of Public Figures

Google can parse pronouns when you provide context, which allows you to chain queries together in a really useful way. For example:

“Ok Google, pictures of Bill Murray.”

“Ok Google, is he married?”

“Ok Google, what movies has he been in?”

“Ok Google, what’s the Bacon number of Bill Murray?”

This feature is also handy for other things — if you ask about, say, the weather in Hoboken, it can do that, and then will interpret future queries on the assumption that you’re still talking about New Jersey.

Answer Idle Curiosities

Sometimes you want to quickly get a short explanation of something, but don’t feel like actually looking into it or asking someone. In that case, you can just ask Google. Since you can chain queries together, this allows you go through your aimless Wikipedia trawls in a sci-fi, Star-Trek computer sort of way.

“Ok Google, who was Grace Hopper?”

“Ok Google, what’s FORTRAN?”

“Ok Google, what’s a race condition?”

Google automatically scrapes these summaries from reputable online authorities like Wikipedia, automatically cutting out the snippets that best explain the topic in a general context.

Streamline Your Travel Experience

Google Now is a traveler’s best friend. If you get your order confirmation through Gmail, Google Now will automatically track your flights and provide you with up to date information on them as you get ready to depart.

What’s maybe more useful, though, is your ability to use Google now as an always-on traveler’s dictionary of useful phrases. Google can intelligently take phrases, translate them into a variety of languages, and then pronounce them for you at the tap of a button, which is indispensable when trying to navigate in places where you don’t speak the language. The translations aren’t perfect, but they’re good enough for most practical purposes.

“Ok Google, say in Spanish, ‘Where is the bathroom?'”

“Ok Google, say in Spanish, ‘I’m sorry officer.'”

“Ok Google, say in Spanish, ‘I’ve never seen that before in my life.'”

“Ok Google, say in Spanish, ‘I want to go to the American embassy.'”

Use Google Now from Anywhere

With the latest update, it’s now possible to access Google Now from any screen, including from within other apps.

To activate this feature, just update the Google Search app in the Play Store, and then go to Settings >Language & Input >Voice Search >”Ok Google” Detection and select which situations you want the functionality available (note that enabling it from the lockscreen can compromise the security of your device if you have a PIN or password lock enabled).

This feature just came out in the most recent update, and is crazy useful for Google Now power users — or anyone who wants to operate their device hands-free.

The idea of trying to build an AI assistant that tries to make itself invisible (rather than aiming to dazzle with its ability to talk to you) is a really clever idea, and one that will probably come to dominate the market in the future.

Got any cool Google Now tricks that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments!

First of all, I didn't understand the comment made by Keith. Could you kindly explain it again.
Secondly, I have a dual sim phone. The "send text to .." feature works perfectly fine but it doesn't ask which sim to use for sending out sms, although my Sim settings are set to always ask before sending out text messages. If I send them without using google now, it asks me which sim to use. What could be wrong? I'm using android 4.2.2 from Pakistan.

This article is like every service rep I've found: it is completely unaware that Google Now and Google Search are two separate apps. They can work together; they can also conflict with each other, causing problems. I have Google Now (touchless control in settings) turned on, but Google Search voice off. Google Now works off a black screen until/unless it diverts to Google Search which is a white screen and different voice. Be aware that they are different apps with a tricky relationship.

Sure, and we'll all speak Esperanto. Shall I bitch because Sigur Ros doesn't perform in American? There is nothing stopping anyone on this thread from creating their own services in their own language in their own country. You can even ruthlessly exploit your fellow citizen's private data. Christ, and I though Americans were whiny....

I myself have disabled GNow using Titanium Backup, because the location settings utilized in this app have a huge impact on the battery life. Also because everything I can do in this I can do in my browser.
As for the voice functions, apparently only native English speakers have a use for it. No other accents are acceptable regardless of correct pronunciations (Indian, in my case)